


End of the Lie

by TinyFakeFanficRock



Series: Ad meliora [14]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Angst, Domestic Violence, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 05:39:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17892533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinyFakeFanficRock/pseuds/TinyFakeFanficRock
Summary: A small thing triggers two big revelations.





	End of the Lie

Boone had learned years ago that cupboard doors banging open and shut was the kind of noise he was better off not investigating. Even so, he still found himself peering warily into the suite's kitchen in case Lily was in there turning on all the oven's burners again. To his surprise, he found only Mel in the room, closing the rightmost cupboard and sighing.

"You'd think a place with this many beds would have at least one big pot," she muttered to herself before she turned and saw him. "Oh! Sorry. Too much noise?"

He shook his head. "Just wondered what you were doing."

"Looking for a big stockpot. I don't mind cooking for everyone, but I don't like having to split things up into two pots." She looked away, and then back up at him again as if she'd had an idea. "I could try the downstairs kitchens, though. Would you come with me, in case Mr. House forgot to tell the robots I'm allowed in there?"

He didn't really think she needed the backup, but he did prefer her quiet presence over the chaos that filled his head when he was alone. "Sure."

In the elevator he kept the hand next to her free, just in case; she brushed the back of it a couple times with the back of her own hand. The doors were just opening when it occurred to him that maybe she'd asked him to come because she liked having him around, too. Boone didn't know what to do with that idea, so he ignored it and followed her as usual.

Most of the kitchens' robotic staff were in standby mode, and the one currently active made a few sharp comments about not getting in the way or making a mess and then went about its business as if he and Mel weren't there. She peeked in a few cupboards, shook her head, and they moved off into an adjoining storage room.

The shelf directly opposite the door was crammed with rows of small jars. "Old World spices," Mel murmured, her dark eyes enormous with awe. "I've only heard of some of these from Pre-War books." She examined the collection for a moment, chose a few containers to tuck into her pockets, then continued.

She ran two long fingers lightly along the next shelf, full of assorted metal implements he'd never seen before, and held one up that looked like a weird double-ended spoon with a hole in each bowl. "Do you have any idea what this is for?"

He shook his head and picked up something else that looked like a nutcracker, but was larger and strangely curved, and squeezed experimentally. Whatever you put in the middle of that hinged part was gonna hurt. "We sure this stuff is for food?"

"I -- God, I _hope_ so." He was glad he'd made her laugh, even if it sounded a little nervous. They put the odd tools back.

The next shelf to the left was full of dishes and pans, and while Mel dropped to one knee and decided which of the big pots on the bottom shelf to take, a glitter from higher up caught his eye. It was an ornately carved glass punch bowl, complete with a matching ladle and ten cups, probably worth as much as the entire Dino Dee-Lite Motel, the exact place where his memory dropped him.

\---

"Did Cliff have any carrots this week?" Carla sat peeling potatoes, her feet propped on an upended wooden crate with a blanket folded on top as a cushion.

"Mm-hmm," he said, setting down the small crate of groceries on the table beside her so she could see what he'd picked out and holding out his hand, an offer to take over dinner preparations. Neither of them much cared for cooking, so they usually alternated. He'd made dinner the last few nights because as Carla got rounder, she was also getting more tired. He couldn't really help her with that part -- _you helped enough already_ , she'd told him wryly -- but he could at least take over more of the chores.

She caught his outstretched hand and squeezed it. "I'll finish the peeling and chopping, and then I'll let you take over from there." She kissed his hand and then went back to the potatoes; he slipped around behind her and rubbed her shoulders while she worked. "You didn't happen to see any punch bowls while you were there, right?"

He cocked his head, surprised. "What do you want one of those for? You don't even like punch." _Or enough of the people here to have a party,_ he also thought, but kept that part to himself.

"Well, _I_ don't, but when our little wiggler --" she patted her belly affectionately -- "is older, we'll need to have birthday parties, right? People talk about me enough around here without me serving beer to little kids. And hell, even if we don't throw parties, we can wash the baby in it in a pinch."

Boone chuckled, kissed her sweaty neck, and promised to keep an eye out, figuring he was about as likely to find something that fancy out this way as he was to be elected president.

But a few nights when he was looking over Cliff's latest wares on the way to his shift in the dinosaur's mouth, he actually spotted one. It was a simple rippled thing with six cups, nothing special, but he still promised Cliff a ridiculous number of caps to hold it for him. Cheap compared to the way Carla would light up when he brought it home and set it on the table for her to see right when she woke up. She thrived on the pretty trappings of life on the Strip, and there were so few of them here in Novac that he loved to treat her when he could. God, he fucking loved that woman; her delight was one of the only things that made him feel more like a person than an extension of his gun.

But Carla never saw the punch bowl. Cliff opened up the shop early that morning so he could let Andy in. The Ranger came up the stairs and quietly told Boone that he had found his door standing wide open, blood on the floor, and Carla gone.

For the next month the bowl sat behind the counter, underneath the cash register, until Boone spied it and realized Cliff was keeping it in hopes Carla came back. By then she'd been dead twenty-six days. It should probably have hurt to tell Cliff to sell it on, but by then Boone felt nothing.

\---

He shook himself free from the memory and figured he ought to explain why he'd stopped and gaped. "Carla really wanted one of these," he said before realizing that Mel, too, was now staring at the punch bowl, hands pressed to her mouth, clearly lost in a memory of her own.

\---

Her husband curled his hand lightly around the back of her neck, his wordless way of telling her _listen well, this is very important_. "In three days," he told her, "we are having guests of some prominence. You will be serving dinner for five. You may spend more on ingredients than your usual allotment, but I expect an exceptional meal in return."

"Yes, husband," she replied as always.

The menu was easy: She'd start with a salad, then follow it with a main course of gecko steaks, the Ironwood staple she was best at, and serve roasted potatoes and carrots on the side. An apple pie would be an ideal dessert.

But she wanted something else, something even he would agree was remarkable. She ransacked the kitchen of an old dining hall, hoping to find something she could use to impress his important guests. 

And then she found the punch bowl. It was cloudy glass with a fruit design molded on one side, and only five plain cups sat with it on the shelf. But five was all she needed, and she already had a ladle she could use. For once, fortune was smiling on her.

Obviously she couldn't use wine in the punch, as her people had when they celebrated their trades at Rock Springs every fall, but she was pretty sure she could improvise something tasty with fruit juices. If she was successful, the other Legionaries would likely find it exotic and memorable -- the kind of thing that would make a meal _exceptional_.

And it had all come together so beautifully. Even Raven's own mouth watered at the smells she'd created. Usually she was limited to dishes that complemented coyote steaks, her husband's favorite, so this meal was a refreshing change of pace, a chance to reawaken old skills.

A half-hour before his guests arrived, he came to inspect her work and nodded briskly. "Adequate. Go and clean up. Keep your hair put up -- that's mine to see, -- but I've left a dress upstairs for you. You are to be decorative as well as functional tonight. You might even try smiling."

She didn't know whether to be irked that all her hard work merited only an _adequate_ and a command to smile or astonished that he'd bought her a dress. Not that her feelings mattered; the only acceptable response was still "Yes, husband."

The four prominent guests turned out to be her husband's favorite colleague, Musca, two members of Caesar's personal guard, and another Frumentarius she'd never seen before who said little and did not look happy to be there. They didn't seem to have much in common -- except, apparently, an appetite; all of them complimented the food. One of the Praetorians even offered to buy her, which shocked her, and was firmly rebuffed, which did not.

While her husband didn't praise her work aloud, he did take second helpings of steak and pie. That told her she'd not only met, but exceeded, his expectations. Her relief gave her compulsory smiles an edge of honesty as she waited on the table.

"That will be all, Corva," her husband finally said, and she cleared the plates and bowl -- all empty now, she noted gleefully -- before taking her cue to disappear, an unusual lightness in her step.

Afraid that the sounds of washing up would disrupt their conversation, she waited to clean until the last guest had gone and found her husband waiting for her in the kitchen. "Well done," he told her, then casually picked up the empty punch bowl and lobbed it at the wall, where it shattered.

She could only stare at the scattered shards. Why had he done that? Hadn't she done exactly as he'd asked?

"You may pick that up now." Even though his tone was still mild, she scrambled to obey, cutting her hand on the sticky pieces in her haste.

She was tying off her bandage when she finally realized what she'd done to offend him. All the other Legionaries' praise had had her smiling too broadly, standing too straight. _You got proud,_ she concluded grimly.

When she returned to their bedroom, she took pains to keep her steps quiet and her head down. He rewarded her renewed timidity with soft touches and a smile that left her hating herself even more by the time he rolled over and went to sleep.

\---

Mel tore her eyes away from the gleaming bowl, snatched up the stockpot she'd chosen, and started back toward the elevator. Sometime around the eleventh floor, Craig confirmed that he had noticed her preoccupation. "What'd it remind you of?"

Instead of her usual response, a hasty _I'd rather not say_ , she didn't answer.

Back in the suite, Mel deposited the pot beside the kitchen sink, wet a napkin, and chased centuries of dust from its steel surface before she set about washing it properly, considering how to tell him. She had to, especially since he'd already told her his side. Used his wife's name, even, which she knew was rare; speaking it always seemed to hurt him a little.

And on the practical side, the others were gone or in their own rooms on the next floor down, which meant no one to interrupt or overhear. This kind of privacy was too perfect an opportunity to waste. And once he'd learned why she, too, so hated the Legion, they could get back on the road. This wasn't really going to change anything.

She turned to the open door, where he waited, patient as always, but remembered there was something he wasn't telling her, too. Mel wanted to know what it was before she told him anything she couldn't take back. "All right, I'll tell you. But you have to tell me one thing first." Cass would be so proud of her for bartering, she thought as she sat down at one corner of the long table.

He nodded and slumped into the other chair at that corner, the misery descending onto his face suggesting he'd already guessed what she wanted to know.

Mel forged ahead anyway. "Craig, what were you going to tell me in Vault 22?"

He took a breath deep enough that his shoulders visibly moved. "Carla. After they took her, they ... she ... I tracked her down. Southeast, near the river." _Cottonwood Cove. He said he'd been there before. Oh, God._ "They were selling her. Saw it through my scope. Whole place swarming with Legion. Hundreds of them. Bidding for things no man has a right to." He shuddered and took a deep breath, looked at her, almost through her, as if he was wondering if she could understand the horror he'd seen.

_It looks worse from the auction block,_ she thought, but smothered the thought as profoundly unhelpful. "Must have been something straight out of hell."

"Yeah. I just had my rifle with me. Just me, against all of them, so ... I took the shot." He dropped his head into his hands.

She couldn't have heard him correctly, but everything in his voice, his posture said she had. She leapt up, chair tumbling away behind her, voice cracking as she blurted, " _You_ killed her?"

"If I hadn't, she'd have been some Legion bastard's property," he told her, head still down.

"But she would have been _alive_!"

Now his head snapped up. "Alive to be a Legion fucktoy! What the hell gives you the right to say that's a life worth living?" Good thing they were the only ones in the suite, because they were both shouting now.

"Because," Mel shot back, "I've been 'some Legion bastard's property' and I've been shot in the head. I know which one _I_ preferred." Oh, God, now she'd gone and said it, and they were both already angry, and this was not going to end well. Maybe it would have been better if the others were around. A distraction would be useful about now.

Instead, he only said, "What?"

He'd said it with disbelief rather than incomprehension, but she wasn't feeling particularly charitable at the moment. So she ground her teeth and then spelled it out slowly for him, her voice brittle but clear: " _I_ was a slave, Craig. You killed your wife so she wouldn't end up like me. A Legion fucktoy."

He stared at her and said nothing, but that was all right: there was nothing else to say. Mel collected her things and called Rex, who already knew what she was and didn't care.

_You got proud,_ she told herself bitterly, shouldering her pack and heading east, away from the Strip's lights.


End file.
